


like tomorrow won't arrive

by betweenthepages



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-03 01:18:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6590824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betweenthepages/pseuds/betweenthepages
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can no longer hear the hum of the motorbike underneath them over the sound of the pounding rain, and if the person driving it were anyone other than Melinda he’d probably be terrified, but he trusts Melinda to drive. He always has.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like tomorrow won't arrive

**Author's Note:**

> From a fic meme prompt: “We’re in the middle of a thunderstorm, and you want to stop and feel the rain?”

They should have stopped miles ago, where there was still shelter to be taken, tea to be drunk, peace to be savoured. 

He can no longer hear the hum of the motorbike underneath them over the sound of the pounding rain, and if the person driving it were anyone other than Melinda he’d probably be terrified, but he trusts Melinda to drive. He always has.

He tightens his arms around her waist, clumsily tries to rest his head on her shoulder, but their helmets are big and bulky and bump into each other instead. Melinda snorts, amused, then slows the bike.

She pulls over on the shoulder and kills the engine. Wordlessly she climbs off, takes off her helmet, then strips off the raincoat that was her only respite from the rain, and gestures for him to join her.

He looks around. There’s no shelter to be found, nowhere to dry off, just the sight of the ocean stretching out beyond the cliff beneath them and the moon shining down, resplendent despite the storm.

He laughs. “We’re in the middle of a thunderstorm, and you want to stop and feel the rain?”

This is a terrible idea, he wants to say, that there’s thunder and lightning’s probably not far off and that they should really get somewhere safe. Then again, they survived a decade of terrible ideas, of sleeping with the oven on for warmth, of three am Vegas adventures.

(It was never the ordinary dangers that got them, after all.)

She shrugs. “We’ve survived worse than this,” she says, her tone a smidgen too high, the way it was when she’d said “you’re okay, you’re okay” over and over when she’d pulled him from the rubble a month earlier, when for the first time Lash was gone and there was peace. She removes his helmet and sets it on the bike next to them, and he can’t help but step forward and press a kiss to her forehead, savoring the way she burrows in closer to his body.

She pulls back, a glint in her eyes that he knows all too well, one he hasn’t seen for years and missed dearly. “What was that terrible movie you liked so much?” she asks casually, the waver in her voice gone.

It’s a testament to their relationship that she doesn’t tease him about just how many of his favourite movies involve scenes where they kiss in the rain.

“Kissing in the rain is a terrible trope in real life,” he says, in an attempt at reason. It’s true. The rain is coming down so hard it almost hurts, and Melinda has to keep running her hand across her face and his just so they can see. They’re drenched, now, shivering, and despite that Melinda grins up at him, pokes him in the stomach, and he protests weakly. They really should go.

But then her arms are around her neck and her legs around his waist and her lips are against his, soft and urgent at the same time, and as he stumbles back he understands the stop now, the rain, the need to feel connected and raw and alive.

Thunder rumbles above them again, and Melinda slips from his grasp, landing on her feet with a laugh. They’re older, now, and wiser, supposedly, but seeing her like this – reckless, loved, happy – brings him straight back to the first time he saw her smile, the way he knew after mere weeks that he’d want to spend his life with her and her smile.

“Melinda –,” he starts, wanting to tell her this, wanting to tell her how in a thousand lifetimes he’d choose this over and over, to endure and survive and live all those lifetimes with her, even knowing what happens.

He decides to show her instead. 

He puts her helmet on her, tucking her hair behind her ears, pulling the buckle tight, then puts on his own. He leans in for a kiss, but the helmets get in the way again and they wind up rubbing noses instead, and as Melinda’s hand comes up to tap where his nose scrunches he thinks about how he’d thought he’d never know this kind of joy again.

He holds out the key.

“Come on, let’s go home.”

The light in his heart keeps him warm all the way home.


End file.
